Hi everyone.
I was recently contacted by a forum member asking for my opinion of my Zephyr bike, so I though I should update you with my experience and with problems I faced so far.
About this review:
I use my bike to commute to work in Edinburgh bout 6.6 miles both ways, on average about 6.2 or so times a week. I did about 1.2k miles on the bike so far. I ride it under whatever weather conditions (I don't take a bus if, say, it rains). I store my bike at home overnight, and outside at work (it's exposed to low temps and moisture, but it's shielded from rain). I charge it every day. I try to save time on commute and maintain 15 m/h speed, so on a hill I would pull the throttle to 100% for max load on the battery.
Ok, with that said, here is what I think.
First of all I was mentioning before that the folding mechanism feel a bit flimsy. Well, nothing has changed. It still does, but it does not progress any further. The only thing I had to do about it is to oil the hinge once, coz it was making high pitch sounds. I guess folding bikes would never feel as solid and sturdy as their non-folding counterparts. As long as it does not affect my riding experience, I am fine with that.
At about 800 miles I had to true my rear wheel. I don't have a stand not a tesiometer for spokes, nor any experience. 1 week after one og the spokes on the rear wheel broke. Is this because I overtightened it, or it was made of bad quality metal.. who knows. I gave it to a pro for repairs and he told me that due to huge weight of the motor in the wheel and the fact that Edinbrgh roads are far from smooth (hell they ARE far from!), the spokes are expected to suffer quite a bit. Lets see how long they are going to last.
Due to salt in the Edinburgh air some fo the bolts on the bike got really rusty. Not a problem as I don't need to undo them, just shows that some parts are not rust-proof
Suspension still works fine even though sometimes I almost lose control when hitting yet another bump on the road at high speed. So the bike does get a lot of mechanical beating and stress, but survives well so far.
Breaks work great. Really they do. The tiers however start to wear a bit and I noticed that when it rains and I pull the breaks really hard the read axis starts to go sideways. It did not happen at the beginning, suggesting that the grip has deteriorated a bit. Perhaps in about a year from now I'll change the tiers and when I do so, I'll probably get something else.
Now to my biggest complaint about the bike. Not particularly about mine, but about the design itself. I think it has a flaw that makes life a bit inconvenient and that could have been fixed really cheaply had the engineers thought about it.
The battery charge port resides on the side of the frame facing road. Which means that all the water from the street goes right into the battery connector. Now this poses problems. First of all after each rainy ride you see green paste coming out of the connector. What is it? Copper oxide from the connector? Isolation plastic dissolved by the "road chemical cocktail"? I have no idea. The problem is that I noticed this only like 500 miles after. So this means that quite a few times I was charging my battery with this chemical cocktail present in the connector. Now this adds electricity which kicks electro-chemical reactions into play, and things are getting complicated.
I believe (although no firm data) that as a result of this I must have damaged the connector on the battery. Now sometimes I plug it, and the light on the charger stays green i.e. it's not charging (and if you do nothing about it, next morning it feels like it did not charge indeed). Sometimes its enough to move the plug inside the connector and it starts to charge. Sometimes you have to clean the connector and the plug with propanol.
It feels like (I have no data as I don't have instruments to measure the battery capacity, I just rely on the onboard computer which is probably VERY inaccurate) that due to increased resistance of the battery connector, the battery won't charge to 100%. It feels like the battery lost around 20-30% of it's juice as a result (again it's not firm data, also because my commute is way under the expected battery mileage and I charge every day). But perhaps it could also be just normal aging.
Well, regardless, in order to charge I now HAVE to take the battery out (otherwise it won't charge), plug it, and sometime clean the connector. Taking the battery out means that your hands are dirty.
I think this could have been avoided it the battery connector could be closed with a rubber plug of some sort so that water from the road could not reach it directly. Even if what I have now with the battery is considered as "normal aging", it still does not feel right that the chemical cocktail from the road has direct access to the connector.
I won't do anything now, but when I change the battery (perhaps in 1-1.5 years from now), I will think of how to secure the connector with some sort of plug/cap.
Ok, with that said, am I happy with the bike, would I buy one again?
I am happy with the bike and I would buy one again. However, if there is a similar bike on the market with a better designed battery compartment, I would go for that one.
I guess you get what you paid for, and for the money I have paid for it, the bike is worth it.
If you are a lady and not prepared to mess with the battery, perhaps you would have to pay a bit more, as, at list at the time of purchase, according to my market research, Zephyr was the most affordable option for it's features.
In about 1 year from now it will have paid for itself (annual ticket for public transportation here in Edinburgh costs 630 pounds)
_VWV_
